Account editor

[Dale Worley]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 19:13 -0700, Sean Egan wrote:
> > Also, if you right-click on a person, there is no "Properties" or "Edit"
> > option that brings up the same form that was used to add the person
> > initially; you seem to be able to edit only selected aspects of a buddy.
> 
> When you add the person, we give you "Account", "Screen name", "Alias"
> and "Group."
> 
> You can't change the 'account' or 'screenname.' That's essentially
> deleting the person and creating a new one.

In the implementation, that might be so.  But if I added Fred and
misspelled his screenname, and then wanted to correct the screenname, I
would not think of it as deleting Fred from my buddy list and adding a
*different* Fred, but as correcting the information that Pidgin uses to
contact Fred.

> Both alias and group use
> direct manipulation, which is widely considered preferable to doing
> things in some external dialog. Do you have a specific need that's not
> being met?

Yes -- when I desire to edit something, I right click on it, select Edit
or Properties, and expect to be shown a dialog that looks like the one I
used to create it.  That is, the need is that Pidgin resemble other
applications that I use.  In a sense, this is a pure waste, but as a
user interface issue, the goal is to resemble what the users expect.

Thinking about this a bit more, I expect most of the items on the
right-click menu of an object to be "the actions I want this object to
do, or that I want to do with it", but if I want to change the object, I
expect that to be done with an Edit/Properties/Options item.

> > There are also a bunch of little icons (green ball, red X, arrows and
> > doors) whose meanings are obscure, but if you hover the mouse over them,
> > Pidgin won't tell you what they mean.  (Though if you hover the mouse
> > over a buddy's name it will helpfully tell you what their name is, which
> > you already knew.)
> 
> On what protocols?

I haven't found any protocol for which the status icon is explained on
hovering, or that little "thing with the radio wave" on the right side.

Dale